Today, we remember Rachel Carson, marine biologist, author and environmentalist extraordinaire, who was born on this day on May 27, 1907, in Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with igniting the global environmental movement. Shining a light on the dangers of chemical pesticides, the book led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides and ultimately led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
There are many excellent articles, books and videos documenting her life and her works. Please see the tweets and reference section below for links to some well-written articles. Here we present a short synopsis, culled from various articles and present some of the heart-warming tweets and tributes to her.
A Short Biography
Rachel Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, but in 1934 Carson was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a full-time teaching position to help support her family during the Great Depression.
After encouragement from her colleagues, Carson applied for the civil service exam, where she outscored all other applicants and, in 1936, became the second woman hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full-time professional position, as a junior aquatic biologist. She remained there for 15 years, writing brochures and other materials for the public and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer, and financial security. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the reissued version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths.
Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long-term effects of misusing pesticides. In Silent Spring (1962) she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world.
From her biography at www.fws.gov/… —
Carson had long been aware of the dangers of chemical pesticides but was also aware of the controversy within the agricultural community, which needed such pesticides to increase crop production. She had long hoped someone else would publish an expose' on DDT but realized finally that only she had the background as well as the economic freedom to do it. She made the decision to produce Silent Spring after years of research across the United States and Europe with the help of Shirley Briggs, a former Fish and Wildlife Service artist who had become editor of an Audubon Naturalist Society magazine called Atlantic Naturalist. Clarence Cottam, another former Fish and Wildlife Service employee, also provided Carson with support and documentation on DDT research conducted but not generally known.
As expected, her book provoked a firestorm of controversy as well as personal attacks on her professional integrity. The pesticide industry mounted a massive campaign to discredit Carson even though she did not urge the complete banning of pesticides but rather that research be conducted to ensure pesticides were used safely and alternatives to dangerous chemicals such as DDT be found. The federal government, however, ordered a complete review of its pesticide policy and Carson was asked to testify before a Congressional committee along with other witnesses. As a direct result of the study, DDT was banned. With the publication of Silent Spring, Carson is credited with launching the contemporary environmental movement and awakening concern by thinking Americans about the environment.
Carson dedicated the book to Nobel Peace Prize recipient Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), who said: “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”
Carson died on April 14, 1964 in Silver Spring, Maryland, after a long battle against breast cancer. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.
A Few Notable Tributes
Rachel Carson manuscripts, notebooks, letters, newspaper clippings, photos, and printed material were bequest to Yale University in 1965.
Link below to Carson’s article in the New Yorker -
Sligo Creek is in Silver Spring, MD.
Selected Quotes
- The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth — soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife. To utilize them for present needs while insuring their preservation for future generations requires a delicately balanced and continuing program, based on the most extensive research. Their administration is not properly, and cannot be, a matter of politics.
- The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.
- I shall have to express a very deep conviction: that until we have courage to recognize cruelty for what it is—whether its victim is human or animal—we cannot expect things to be much better in the world. There can be no double standard. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.
- As crude a weapon as the cave man’s club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life—a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways.
- The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.
- This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits.
- We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.
A Few Videos
PBS will re-air the following documentary tomorrow night (Tue, May 28).
Epilogue
We owe a lot to Rachel Carson and other women who took the lead, under trying circumstances, to make the world a better place for all of us. Unfortunately, the fight still continues and we are far from being an enlightened and informed society.
What memories do you have about Rachel Carson? Did you get a chance to read her books? How has her work influenced your life? Please share your thoughts and insights.
Further Reading
- www.rachelcarson.org
- wiki — en.wikipedia.org/...
- The Right Way to Remember Rachel Carson — www.newyorker.com/…
- Rachel Carson on Writing and the Loneliness of Creative Work — www.brainpickings.org/…
- Lessons For Our Time From Rachel Carson — billmoyers.com/…
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Silent Spring-I — www.newyorker.com/...